This is why they are called ball pythons in the US. When threatened, these animals protect themselves by balling their bodies tightly around their heads. Instead, their teeth are sharp and recurved to help the snake catch and hold its prey during constriction.
Like all snakes, they swallow their food whole, so these teeth aren’t adapted to chew. How many teeth does a ball python have?īall pythons have more than 100 teeth, with four rows in their upper jaw and two rows in their lower jaw. The python waits until it can no longer feel the prey animal’s heartbeat, then releases its tight hold and opens its jaw wide to swallow its meal whole. Instead of biting more, the python coils its body around the prey and squeezes until it suffocates (constriction). A constrictor will ambush its prey and catch it in its recurved (backwards-curving) teeth to hold it. The Berkshire Museum ball pythons eat mice and small rats Is the ball python venomous?īall pythons are not venomous. In some places where agriculture has overtaken their natural habitat, ball pythons aid farmers by eating the rodents that are drawn to the crops. In the wild, adult pythons hunt small mammals, amphibians, birds, and even other reptiles. What do ball pythons eat?īall pythons, like all snakes, are carnivores and only eat meat. They can sense a change in temperature as slight as 3/1000th of a degree. On their jaws, they have heat sensing pits (holes) that allow them to track endothermic (warm blooded) mammals. Even in complete darkness, ball pythons have adaptations to hunt at night. Estivation is like hibernation, with the animal being inactive with a lowered metabolic rate, except this behavior happens in hot dry seasons, not cold.īall pythons are most active at dawn and dusk (crepuscular), though they slither around throughout the night. In the summer, they estivate in these burrows. Like many animals living near the equator, ball pythons spend most of each day hiding in underground burrows. What does a ball python do all day?īall pythons are terrestrial (live on land), though they can also slither up trees or in water. Ball pythons live in the dry forest savannahs of Central and West Africa, south of the Sahara Desert and north of the equator.
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